Senators Announce Immigration Plan; President Counters

A bipartisan group of eight senators announced on January 28 that they had developed a plan for comprehensive immigration reform. The group of four Democrats and four Republicans had worked independently of their colleagues in the Senate and informed President Obama over the weekend that they had reached an agreement.

A bipartisan group of eight senators announced on January 28 that they had developed a plan for comprehensive immigration reform. The four Democrats and four Republicans had worked independently of their colleagues in the Senate and informed President Obama over the weekend that they had reached an agreement.

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), one of the eight, said in a Monday press conference,

We have come together on a set of bipartisan principles for comprehensive immigration reforms that we hope can pass the Senate in an overwhelming and bipartisan fashion. We still have a long way to go, [but] this bipartisan blueprint is a major breakthrough.

Schumer’s use of the term “blueprint” reflected the unfinished status of the plan, which has yet to be converted into proposed legislation, which the New York Democrat said the group hopes to have drafted by March.

The other senators who worked on the plan included Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Dick Durbin (D- Ill.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), John McCain (R-Ariz.), Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

Rubio, the Tea Party senator whose inclusion among the group is seen by many as an attempt to assuage conservative fears that immigration “reform” may be another attempt to provide amnesty to illegal aliens, wrote an article published in Sunday’s Las Vegas Review-Journal in advance of the announcement, “Ex-Las Vegan Rubio outlines a GOP vision for immigration reform.” Rubio said three key areas related to immigration must be addressed:

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